It's New Year's resolutions time again......Did you spend the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's on a cookie, alcohol, and rich food binge? Then you're the perfect candidate for the "Eat Healthier" resolution! Here's how it works:

January 1 - eat only raw fruits, nuts, and vegetables, with a rice cake for dessert. You'll feel light, in control, and altogether superior to those around you.

January 3 - insert a big bag of potato chips after the rice cake.

January 6 - insert a tub of ice cream after the potato chips

January 7 - see above re: binge

At this point, it's pretty well established that most of the sweeping promises made at the turn of the new year stick for about 1-2 weeks, or a month if you're lucky. New Year's resolutions are typically too broad and require a dramatic change in behavioral patterns overnight, going from one set of habits on December 30, to exactly the opposite patterns on January 1.

I've long ago given up on New Year's resolutions because it feels unnatural to force such dramatic change upon myself. And after many failed attempts of "I will start eating healthier tomorrow" while stuffing a third brownie into my mouth, I realized that just as slow and steady wins the race, small changes always beat out grand proclamations. Small changes require consistent discipline and a certain gentleness with yourself. With the small changes approach, you just keep showing up, holding yourself accountable to your goal while forgiving the occasional slip-up, and continually recommit to healthy choices to the extent possible in each moment.

In lieu of a typical broad resolution like those of the popular "eating right" and "exercising more" variety, this year I'm trying something different as a way to kick start a great 2012. It started off as an idea for our Teacher Training students as a way to motivate them to maintain a daily home yoga practice.

Beginning January 1, we are encouraging all of our trainees to commit a daily practice of some sort to do for 30 days. It could be a brief asana practice, seated meditation, or pranayama practice, or it could just be rolling out the old yoga mat and going with what comes up. The time limit is very flexible - even if it's only 5 minutes carved out of an otherwise busy day, that counts as part of this discipline.

The idea is that, unlike the empty promise of a "get healthier" resolution, picking a specific activity and committing to doing it for 30 days creates the possibility for real, lasting change. If, for example, your resolution would have been to eat healthier, perhaps your practice of discipline could be to eat green vegetables every day for a month.

Hopefully, after the first 30 days the new habit of choosing health on a daily basis will be so ingrained that it will be easier to stick to in the long-term. Just like yoga practice, in which we take it one day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time, so too must we approach changes in habits with the same gentle, but disciplined mindset. Real change does not come with great proclamations made on December 31. But rather with small acts of commitment on January 1, January 2, January 3, January 4, and so on.

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Kerry Maiorca

Passionate about yoga, writing, and creativity in general, Kerry is the Founder & Director of Bloom Yoga Studio. Her Thinking Yogi blog explores the intersection of yoga and everyday life, and you can also find her writing on Huffington Post, elephantjournal, MindBodyGreen, yoganonymous, and Yoga Chicago. Kerry and her husband Zach live in Chicago with their three children who love to "help" when she practices yoga in the living room.